Chapter 4:

Naruto put one of the detained villagers against the wall and demanded to know if there was a cure for the drug. The man who shot Shikamaru with the dart claimed there was no cure and the drug simply had to run its course.

Hearing the red-vested man laugh outside the building, Naruto rounded on him in anger. "You're a bunch of cheaters, you know that?"

The man in the red vest shrugged his shoulders. "There was no rule saying we couldn't."

"What you did to my friend you planned on doing to all of us, didn't you?" Naruto was still careful not to say anything that would imply that they had chosen their target correctly.

"It's not our problem if the appointed test-taker is unable to fulfill their duties," said the man. "The rules were just that someone had to take the test and it could be anyone other than the town leader. It doesn't say we can't do anything to hinder them."

Naruto shoved the man against the wall so violently, the man's feet were no longer touching the ground.

"It's just a test, man," the man in the red vest told him, only mildly perturbed by Naruto's actions. "We're not going to kill somebody over something stupid like that. Nor are we going to hinder a person's life. The drug's temporary. It'll wear off, just like we told that chick. Your friend will be fine."

"But not in time for the test," Naruto pointed out to him. He no longer cared if he said something incriminating or not, knowing the damage was done.

"Like I said, that's not our problem." The man put his hand on Naruto's hinting that he wanted to be let down. "Either take the test yourself or forfeit. Unless, you still want your friend to take the test. That's still an option. I guess it depends how confident you are in your friend."

Naruto was confident in his friend. In this state, however…

Naruto released the man and stormed off.

None of them thought they had done anything wrong and, based on a technicality, they hadn't.

This must have been why the town's leader arranged things this way. This must have been what Shikamaru had suspected from the start. It wasn't just the enemy stacking the odds in his favor. It was wording the rules of the game so that he would win.

If they had their champion, there was no rule saying they couldn't hinder them before the test. There also wasn't a rule saying they couldn't appoint someone else to take their place. It seemed fair until they considered that there was no one smart enough to replace them. Allowing them to have a stand-in didn't matter.

"If they get rid of all the super smart guys, then we'd have to substitute someone who pales in comparison and they know that person wouldn't stand a chance," Naruto thought to himself. "That's why they're not going to waste the drug on anyone else. They know they don't have to because we don't stand a chance."

Their only hope was to use Ino's jutsu and figure out the test between the two of them. He doubted Shikamaru would be any better by the time the test was given.

Sure enough, Ino was at wit's end trying to retrain Shikamaru for the test. When Naruto returned, Ino was close to pulling out her hair and Shikamaru had used the flashcards to construct a castle instead of what they were intended for. He had also used the different puzzle pieces to build a tower instead of solving any of the puzzles.

"It's not gonna happen," Ino told Naruto, giving up. "I've tried everything. He just won't focus. He doesn't understand. He's too stupid."

Shikamaru used one of the empty puzzle boxes to scoot around on the floor while singing to himself.

Naruto sat on the floor beside her. "There's no cure either. It'll just wear off. Looks like it's up to us."

"I don't get why Shikamaru didn't have a backup. He must have known this might happen. Why didn't he have someone outside the village wait until the test and then show up and throw everyone off? Was he doing this to protect them or did he just not see the point? What was he thinking?"

"He must have had a reason for doing things this way. I don't see how, but he must have had a reason," Naruto assured her and himself at the same time.

Ino looked over at Shikamaru scooting the puzzle container he was riding in into the wall. He flopped backwards onto his back and pulled the box out from under him, putting it on his head instead. "It's up to us and I don't know what to do."

"We'll figure it out."

"Shikamaru always figured it out for us…" She watched Shikamaru remove the box from his head and stare at the ceiling. "Without Shikamaru…"

They watched Shikamaru slide himself closer to the wall until his legs and hips were against it and his back and shoulders on the floor. He pushed his legs off the wall and pedaled them in the air while he stared at the ceiling and chuckled. "I'm walking on the ceiling… haha…!"

Naruto asked Ino a question without taking his eyes off Shikamaru's antics. "Does he seem happier to you?"

"They say ignorance is bliss, so…"

"Yeah, but… I was wondering," Naruto began. "You think Shikamaru likes being a genius? He's the happiest I've ever seen him right now. Unless he's laughing so much because he's loopy. Is he loopy or just stupid? I'm having a hard time telling."

Ino gave Shikamaru a sad look. "Maybe it's all the pressure we put on him," she said quietly.

"Pressure?"

"I mean, he's smart and I'm pretty sure he's happy that he is, but all the pressure that's put on him probably makes him miserable. He did say he didn't want extra work put on him, but maybe that's not just the laziness talking."

They had been teammates for years but Ino never questioned whether or not Shikamaru was happy being a genius. He had a sense of humor, he smiled and laughed, but not as much as he was right now. Was it because being a genius was a burden and this was him being free of that? Was the levity making him giddy? Perhaps Shikamaru would be happier not being a genius.

"Choji and I always rely on him to come up with the plans, trusting in him completely. I never really thought about how much pressure that would be. I suppose it would be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, people have that much faith in you. On the other, you can't mess it up. For everyone to turn to you for that sort of thing would probably have you feeling a ton of pressure. Always you coming up with the plans for everyone else because you're good at it. To be needed because of your talents. It probably feels good but at the same time you want other people to handle it for a change so it's not always you."

Naruto had to agree with her. "Yeah. It's cool for people to look to me for important stuff like that, but… Always you? Never messing anything up because people rely on you completely? Talk about pressure."

"Maybe Choji and I rely on him too much," Ino said, thinking about all the missions they had ever gone on. "Shikamaru is always the one coming up with the plans. We're always asking him what we should do. We know that his plans are the best. We know he can handle it. But now that he can't… I feel so helpless. I don't know what to do. Now that it's up to us, we're stumped. We need someone to tell us what to do and the one person who does that can't."

She knew she wasn't a genius and didn't try to force her way to the front with a plan knowing Shikamaru's were always the best. If she had, they would have failed more missions than they had completed successfully. She knew better than to make them adhere to one of her plans just to have the spotlight. Everyone did the job they were best at and Shikamaru was best at strategy. Even if she tried her hardest, she couldn't do what he could.

"He wanted us on this mission for a reason, right?" said Naruto. "It must be because we can do something he can't. He probably doesn't want us to solve this like him but solve it like us."

"Do things our way, in other words."

"Right," said Naruto. "I could use my clones to transform into Shikamaru to make them think they failed. You can use your jutsu, too. Maybe instead of giving me the answers, you can go into the town leader's body and give me a simple test."

"I see where you're going with this. But…" Ino had to point out the flaws. "Making them think they failed… I'm not sure how that could work in our favor. It'd just confuse them. As for me giving you an easy test that way, the town's leader will have to return to normal eventually and when he does, he'll know something happened and retaliate."

"Where's the rule that says we can't?" Naruto asked with a smirk. "If they want to play it that way, so can we. There's no rule saying the town leader can't be control by a member of the Yamanaka clan. He just can't be appointed to answer his own questions. You asking them for him is irrelevant."

"That could work." Ino had an idea of her own. "Or, I could stall the town leader. He gives the test when he gives the test. I could use my jutsu to stall him on the road before he gets here and make him late. He'll show up around the time Shikamaru's recovered."

"That's a great idea, too. See? We can do this."

Ino was feeling more confident now, but there were still so many issues. They didn't know if the town leader would find another way to turn things to his favor. If he said him being late was forfeit, then that posed a problem. Was there even a rule that he couldn't change the rules? If the town leader wanted to win, he would, even if he had to cheat to do it.

Shikamaru inched his way across the floor like a caterpillar, keeping his arms at his sides as he bent and straightened his legs to move around the room on his stomach.

When he reached the pile of puzzles and activities, he sprang onto them and flattened the pile. He picked up the fallen flashcards and started to arrange them in an alternating pattern, horizontal over vertical. When he was finished, he ran his left hand over the cards he held clasped in his right, enjoying the texture tickling his skin. He ran his thumb over the edges of the cards he had fanned out, loving the buzzing sound they made. He brushed the cards against his face, giggling at the sensation. He then flung the cards into the air and jumped through the rain of white rectangles, trying to see how many he could catch without actually grabbing them. He landed on his stomach and two cards landed on top of him. He shifted his head and a card slid off his head, tickling his ear. He grabbed it in his teeth and spat it out as far as he could get it.

"Maybe he needs a break from being a genius," Naruto observed. "We'll handle this mission."

Ino nodded. "Yeah…"

Shikamaru was now using the electric fan to make the cards fly by holding them as close to the fan as he could and releasing them. He talked into the fan, loving the way his voice sounded against the rotating blades. "Woo-OOO-ooo-OOO-ooo…!" He crouched in front of the fan and hovered his lips inches away from the blades and spoke into it, changing the pitch of his voice to see how it would sound.

"It is strange seeing him like this, isn't it?" Naruto asked Ino, watching him.

"Very," she confirmed.